Got some bad publicity for Microsoft today in their new Windows Phone Challenge. Apparently a California man won the challenge and should have gotten a nice new laptop but he was told he didn’t win. The reason given that he didn’t win? ‘Just because’. The best part is that they even asked him to have his picture taken in front of a sign stating that his phone was beaten by a Windows Phone, even though it wasn’t. I think it was just an overzealous employee, but it’s still very bad publicity for Microsoft. If I was them that employee would be fired immediately. MS just shot themselves in the foot here as it were, it’s just bad. Even though it was a low level employee, still they represent Microsoft and this looks bad for the entire company and Windows Phones. All of the results of their contest will now be called into question. Don’t get me wrong, I like my Windows Phone and I like Microsoft but this is just going to be very bad for them and their phones. They’re trying to get the word out about how great their phones are and then one of their employees does something stupid like this…

Here’s a quote from the guy who won:

I excitedly thought I won out of pure luck. However, I was quickly told that I lost. I asked for a reason and was told Windows Phone won because “it displays the weather right there.” That was rather unclear. I showed her my device which also was showing off the same information with two side-by-side weather widgets on the center home screen. After pressing for a better reason, I was told that Windows Phone won “just because.”

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Kristofer

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8 Comments

Common_Sense83March 26, 2012

I just commented on the original article so I wont go in to length on my opinion again! I’ll say this, don’t expect compare a hourly employee to “Ben the Pc Guy”. Don’t compare a retail store to a corporate office in Redmond!
Focus on some positive strides Windows Phone has made and continues to make this year..and stop blowing up bs!

Yeah saw that.. it’s good he’s doing something about it, but the damage is done.. sites won’t be reporting on the fact that the problem was fixed, at least nowhere near as many that reported on the problem..

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JimMarch 26, 2012

It looks like some sites are reporting that the situation has been fixed, but I agree, damage done.

Actually though, the specific challenge in question was pretty pointless, as both phones needed some deterministic setup before the fact. In reality, it was just a contest to see who could turn their phone on the fastest. If all of their challenges are of this caliber (I haven’t followed the campaign), I don’t see it as establishing superiority of one OS over another regardless of who wins.

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MartiMMarch 26, 2012

Nicely handled, Ben the PC Guy. That was very much the correct thing to do.
I’ve really enjoyed this campaign, but it probably had already reached its end.

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nlmMarch 27, 2012

Well the guy wasn’t honest knowing he already had the weather widgets on his start screen. There was nothing to test there. If he was really confident his phone was quicker he should’ve offered another test. But he was greedy.

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Chris LeiterMarch 27, 2012

the ‘contest’ revolves around a few tasks that wp7 devices do very well. It’s specifically geared towards showing off a few things that the OS does without having to use an app. thats cool, but at the same time, it’s not really showing that the devices are any better or faster. they just happen to be able to perform these very specific tasks faster than most phones. if they had a challenge in the contest to see what phone was faster looking up something on the internet, or which phone could find and download a song faster, or which device could be used to create an event or reminder faster, THAT would be a ‘contest’. This is just a glorified ad campaign that has wrapped up a few people into thinking it’s something special.

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nlmMarch 27, 2012

Uh, that’s the whole point of the phone and contest: it is faster b/c the OS does things differently and that is what makes it special. Its not another iOS or clone ala android.